You're right - my opinion is just an unpopular one. I don't think our defensive players at the time were good enough to take us to the next level and some of them are still here.

You won't see Guardiola or Klopp focus on defence too much either but they'll still win a lot of games, and in City's case trophies too. At the time, I felt our attacking players were being let down by our defensive players - a bit like the shite this season.

Totally wrong about Guardiola. His Barca side worked just as hard to defend as they did to attack. They had a carefully thought out system for doing it as well.

Agree with the fitness problems and if addressed, things could have been very different. Also think Evans would have been a huge upgrade on Jagielka/Distin.

Lukaku didn't mask chance creation issues. Lukaku was/is a great finisher, but very rarely did he create goals out of nothing. Arsenal (13-14), Chelsea (15-16) and City (16-17) off the top of my head in 4 seasons with us.

Worth noting we scored more than 2 of the top 6 in 2015-16. With a better quality of defender, on and off the ball, personally think things would have been different. As you say, recruitment was hit and miss and defence is probably where we struggled to recruit well. Jagielka and Distin weren't good enough to play the system well and Stones was just coming through.

Just reading osman saying martinez, the man who got Everton, wouldn't play him in a Derby cos he thought he would get too involved in the game.... Ffs, I'd rather eleven lads from Walton out there getting involved in the game than eleven fuckers who don't care

I like this guy. You spot on mate. I feel exactly the same. We should of stuck with him. All great managers have a period where fans want to get rid. They just need time. We needed better defenders and a better Centre midfielder but we were close.

Thatís how depressingly bad and prehistoric Big Sam is, that we are reminiscing about Martinezís great season and ignoring the decable of the other season and a half where the players blew out of their arses after an hour.

Under Martinez first season he inherited an aging, shit team, no money, he made £15m profit and reduced wages, then got 7 points(10%) more than any other season in last 30 years. He left far more than he inherited, we got nearly £200m for Stones, Lukaku and Barkley. He didn't get a window with Moshiri's money, despite his arrival raising expectations even further. He was sacked because we weren't going to get CL football and the wheels had fully come off, but we needed a window to change things. Martinez planned over longer term and was almost willfully blind to short term problems.

Since then we had 7th is good for Everton and now it's about survival. We've had the £200m+ from his player sales, we've spent money on top of that and it looks like a pile of turds again. Moyes, Koeman and Allardyce are all older generation of managers, they all want those special players, but we never seem to have any. Under Martinez he'd be delighted with a turd, if it was the best turd we had, look at it glisten, tremendous.

If Martinez took over now, he'd put Pickford, Kenny, Holgate, Baningime, Vlasic, Lookman, DCL, Sandro in the team and wax lyrical, but they would be supported and develop into very good players by next season. Instead we'll crowbar Sigurdsson, Keane into teams that are playing well and keep returning to unorganised confusion, and bending over when going to big teams. Martinez would trade blows with anyone, in their own backyard, his fearlessness was often seen as carelessness. I think bravery is a key ingredient for the very best managers and I saw that in Unsworth and Kenwright, I don't see that in Allardyce or Moshiri.

Under Martinez first season he inherited an aging, shit team, no money, he made £15m profit and reduced wages, then got 7 points(10%) more than any other season in last 30 years. He left far more than he inherited, we got nearly £200m for Stones, Lukaku and Barkley. He didn't get a window with Moshiri's money, despite his arrival raising expectations even further. He was sacked because we weren't going to get CL football and the wheels had fully come off, but we needed a window to change things. Martinez planned over longer term and was almost willfully blind to short term problems.

Since then we had 7th is good for Everton and now it's about survival. We've had the £200m+ from his player sales, we've spent money on top of that and it looks like a pile of turds again. Moyes, Koeman and Allardyce are all older generation of managers, they all want those special players, but we never seem to have any. Under Martinez he'd be delighted with a turd, if it was the best turd we had, look at it glisten, tremendous.

If Martinez took over now, he'd put Pickford, Kenny, Holgate, Baningime, Vlasic, Lookman, DCL, Sandro in the team and wax lyrical, but they would be supported and develop into very good players by next season. Instead we'll crowbar Sigurdsson, Keane into teams that are playing well and keep returning to unorganised confusion, and bending over when going to big teams. Martinez would trade blows with anyone, in their own backyard, his fearlessness was often seen as carelessness. I think bravery is a key ingredient for the very best managers and I saw that in Unsworth and Kenwright, I don't see that in Allardyce or Moshiri.

Some good points but cherry-picking perceived pluses of a Martinez reign whilst neglecting to mention all the negatives doesn't lead to a balanced argument.